The AFRP Educational and Cultural Exchange Mission has led and sponsored numerous missions and programs to Ramallah, Palestine for a wide range of American participants including journalists, educators, clergy, and political leaders since 2015.
It is also a founding sponsor of the PalTrek missions organized at Harvard University. Since 2017, we have provided travel support and developed programs in Ramallah for more than 850 graduate students and some professors from Harvard, Yale and other universities.
Through their own eyes, our grantees witness the daily injustices under military occupation and the apartheid practices committed against the indigenous Palestinian people in their homeland.
Our thought-provoking programs convene Palestinian leaders in government, politics, law, human rights, banking, science and the arts. Musical concerts, poetry readings, art exhibits and architectural tours also reveal a modern, resilient and resourceful culture that welcomes our grantees, who enjoy Ramallah’s legendary food scene and annual olive harvest.
To listen to our grantees, the missions are often life-changing experiences. They gain the confidence to speak from their lived experiences to impact policy-making, counteract mis-information and dis-information in the media about the people of Palestine, and amplify the demand for justice and equality – truly American and self-evident values – that guide our missions and support.
Our programs are also made possible with the generous sponsorship of our partners Al Taawon, Bank of Palestine and United Palestinian Appeal.
Yale Law School students and professors hear from a panel of distinguished Palestinian human rights lawyers and civil society representatives at a Mission lunch event in Ramallah.